Out & About- Evans and Peel & Bounce Bar

As you can probably tell from this blog I am at the theatre a lot, however contrary to appearances I don’t spend all of my life sitting in a darkened auditorium. I’m often killing time before the theatre or heading out to somewhere afterwards. I am therefore pretty familiar with a fair amount of bars & restaurants, in particular in and around London and thought I would share this.

This blog entry looks at 2 of the more unusual bars in London:

Evans & Peel Detective Agency:

310c Earls Court Road, SW5 9BA

Nearest Tube: Earls Court.

This bar is built on the premise of a detective agency. Once you have found the discreetly labelled front door you are required to access the bar via an intercom system and once in you find yourself in a reception area surrounded by bookshelves,a large desk and posters. You then declare your reason for being there and after a short interrogation as the staff push you for clues you are released into the bar.

Once inside you are shown to your table. The decor is fairly typical for this type of bar, slightly crumbling around you for ‘effect’. The addition of props such as vintage radios do help add to the feel.

You are faced with an impressive cocktail menu which sit at around the £11 mark. You won’t find a Woo Woo or a Long Island Ice Tea on this menu however. All of the cocktails have unusual ingredients such as raspberry jam, chili and egg whites. Our party of 5 enjoyed ordering different cocktails and trying out the others choices. It is table service only however the staff aren’t pushy and you didn’t feel hurried to order more drinks.
My main criticism of the bar is that the whole premise is based on a detective agency however once you are past the reception area and into the bar itself this premise is dropped. I would have liked it if the staff serving our drinks had provided updates. When you left at the end of the night I felt that the whole charade at the beginning when you provided details of your case was a little pointless.

Bounce Bar –

121 Holborn, EC1N 2TD

Closest Tube – Chancery Lane (Farringdon tube and overground is also close by)

There is also a branch on Old Street.

Bounce is essentially a ping pong bar, with ping pong tables everywhere. The bar recommends booking a table in advance although they do set some tables asides for walk ins you could be in for a wait. Tables are booked by the half hour session and the 6 in my group went for an hour slot. This only cost us £3.20 each. You are given the bats and a bucket full of ping pong balls upon arrival although if you are anything like us and your ping pong skills aren’t up to much you may need to collect stray balls during your time slot. The bar doesn’t take itself too seriously and those around us didn’t seem to mind the accidental stray ping pong ball careering into their playing space or even onto their table (whoops).

The drinks menu is also varied with cocktails around the £9 – £10 mark. The Farringdon branch also specalises in gin and they have 40 gins to choose from ranging from £7 – £12. I would personally recommend a gin cocktail so you get the best of both worlds although I’m sure gin purists are giving me disapproving looks for even suggesting that. I had ‘Late to the Party’ which was gin, elderflower, apple puree, sugar can, lemon juice and mint and was rather delicious.

Once you have finished your ping pong there isn’t a huge amount of space to sit and have a drink so we left fairly soon after our allotted hour. There is a restaurant area however we didn’t stay for food so I can’t comment on this.

In summary a fun bar with a good talking point and gins but once that is exhausted there isn’t much space for simply drinking and chatting.

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My latest review is for J.M.Barrie's Dear Brutus. Whilst most theatres are offering us Peter Pan, Southwark Playhouse offer us a lesser know play of his that tugs on the imagination and gives us food for thought.